I live in a suburb outside of a large metro area. Not at all considered rural. The only internet provider we had when I moved from my old house to this new suburb was Xfinity (Comcast). The ISP I had previously did not have service in my area and after an exhaustive search, the best I company I could find that WAS NOT Xfinity was a commercial DSL line with a dedicated 5Mbps up and down line for the same cost as and Xfinity line with a 400Mbps up and 15Mbps down. It wasn't even close. I also had to have this company install the line which would've been even more money.

In the end, it was pretty surprising how many areas still only have a single choice for their internet service.